A review by kellygorman
A Guide to Being Just Friends by Sophie Sullivan

Did not finish book. Stopped at 21%.

The main drawback is the depth of the characters. The characters in this story fell a little flat in some areas. It felt like there was a lot of explaining, which took away from the flow of the story. One moment I thought exemplified that was when Wes looked at Hailey’s computer near the beginning. He commented she had a lot of tabs open, and then there was a paragraph explaining that Hailey had a lot going on in her mind and liked being busy. I didn’t feel like the reader needed that extra explanation, as they could have gathered that characterization from just the story element, and those repetitive-feeling filler paragraphs appeared often. 

One more small critique is that I disliked the repeated jokes about going to the gym, eating less cake, and the types of people that like salads. I know that Hailey owned a salad shop and that was very important to her character, but I’m just not a huge fan of those types of comments and I think it’ll scare away some readers, especially when they’re placed near the beginning of the book.  

This is my own fault I suppose, but I didn’t realize this was multiple installments deep into a series. I think this took away from my experience in the beginning because I was a little lost, but I still felt like the book was readable on its own! Reading the plot descriptions of the other two books, I found myself drawn to the one about Everly, especially because I found her to be such a compelling side character - maybe I’ll read that one at some point!